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One of the biggest questions in the middle of the CVIV-19 pandemic has beenWhy does the virus kill some people And let others without detectable symptoms. Now, six months in the pandemic, we finally get answers. According toAnthony Fauci, MD, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), if you are someone who is known to get cold cold after year,You might haveProtection against the new coronavirus, thanks to T cells in your immune system.

"If you look at [your immune system] metaphorically as an army with different levels of defense, theAntibodies prevent the virus from entering into. So it's a bit like the first line of defense, "said Fauci at McClatchy in a recent interview." For viruses that escape and infect certain cells, theT cells enter and kill cells which are infected or blocked them. "

Fauci said most research on Covid have been "focused very exclusively onThe antibody test, "But, he says, T cells are an" equally important component of the immune system ".

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Because Covid-19 is a new coronavirus, it was originally thought that your T cells could not detect it. It was assumed that T cells will only be found in people whohave already had COVID-19. But a new Niaid study published in the journalScienceAugust 4 suggests that up to 50% of people who have not been exposed to coronavirusHave the T cells needed to fight the virus. Similarly, a German study published in the magazineNature At the end of July consider 68 healthy people who hadnot yet been exposed to the coronavirus. Of these, 35% had T cells in their blood needed to attack the new coronavirus.

As a result of this new research, experts believe that healthy people may have generated these T cells when combating similar coronavirus infections in the past, such as colds. And theMore recently, a person has been infected with another typecoronavirus, the greater the chances they haveProtection against Covid-19, Fauci told McClatchy.

"It's a bit like a punch of one two," he said. "It is conceivable that the T cells you have made in response a few years ago - three, four, five years ago, when you have been exposed to a relatively Benin coronavirus that causes the cold, could really drag, and When you are exposed to SARS-Coronavirus-2, could have a certain degree of protection, "he said.

Loosen as a secondary defense line in the immune system Once the antibodies have failed or faded, T cells have also lasted much longer than antibodies. So, if you read these surprisingreports that antibodies do not last-So a July study outside the United Kingdom that found thatCovid antibodies decreased after only three weeks From the beginning of the infection - do not worry. These reports ignore the role of T cells, depending on falcon and other experts, which is just as swivel.

AMESH ADALJAMD, Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Health Security Center, told CNN pre-existingT cells can also help us understand why Covid affects people so differently.

"If you could compare people perhaps with a serious and gentle illness and try to look at the T cells of these people and say," People who have serious diseases less likely to have reactive cross-state cells compared to People who have a light disease to have more disease cross-reactive T cells? I think there is a biological plausibility for this hypothesis, "he said. "It is clear that the presence of the T cell does not prevent people from being infected, but does it module the severity of the infection? That's what it seems to be the case." And for more about it, checkThat's why Covid kills some people and others are without a symptom, the study says.